Suscipe

Skills and Treats

2010-07-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I made creme brulée to use the quart of heavy cream I rashly bought, and them of course needed to make meringues to use the egg whites. this could go on and on!

The meringues were not a success - I read on the internet to use less sugar for a dry meringue (and I always use meringue suisse, more control and volume and I have the copper bowl), and there wasn't enough sugar to maintain structure, Tasted sort of ok though.(the four pretty ones are for company, the others in random pots)

What I did enjoy was exercising my skills - the custard, the caramel, the um, meringue...

Dark Secret

2010-07-04T08:10:00.000-07:00

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover-leaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh, hear my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountainside,
A song of peace.

Patriotism makes me very uncomfortable.

Dear Dear

2010-07-02T15:10:00.001-07:00

We think its mother was killed on the road, and the poor little thing just lay down under the roses and died....

End of Foodie-ism as We Know It

2010-06-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

http://curbly.com/diy-maven/posts/8604-wtf-cookbooks

Father's Day

2010-06-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

Granny's Birthday

2010-06-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

Photos at last - thank you Angela!

Lovely Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T22:04:00.001-07:00

Champagne, Peter Pan, jewelry, picnic, flowers and family. Ahhhhh.....

Premier: Pinot in Sonoma

2010-04-04T18:37:00.000-07:00

The film program for the Sonoma International Film Festival has now been
locked and our full screening schedule should be posted to our website
(www.sonomafilmfest.org ) within the next 24
hours.

Your film PINOT: SONOMA DREAMS is screening on:

Sunday, April 18th at 3:30 PM
Ramekins Café Cinema, 450 West Spain Street, Sonoma, CA"

So there we have it!!

She Makes Babies

2010-04-04T12:11:00.001-07:00

These are so adorable!

I once had a magical peanut baby doll, who fitted inside a peanut shell, and I dream about it too this day.

These however are made of marzipan! Do. you. think. anyone. ever. ...eats. one?

Tricia in Wonderland

2010-03-24T21:19:00.001-07:00

I knew I shouldn't have drunk that bottle...

Scentsation

2010-03-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

Mary has flu so I took coffee to her this morning, and when I came back through my front door I could smell flowers and fresh coffee and my heart lifted with pleasure. Smell is so important. I once gave up on a suitor because the smell of his washing powder crystalised my distaste for him.

My grandmother's house smelled deliciously of tea.

Stay in New York?!

2010-03-21T15:35:00.001-07:00

Look at this site, rooms all over the planet! I might even do it...

http://www.airbnb.com

Before & After

2010-03-18T09:54:00.000-07:00

I am spending more time in Blogland than usual, hoping I am not turning a pleasure into pure obligation and horribly constrained sometimes by blog etiquette, mostly refraining from saying "I preferred the 'Before'!"

There is a host of happy ladies bedizening honest items with paint, crochet, shells and cute sayin's with the 'g' dropped. My fault for keeping the wrong company.

A Wet, Windy Day

2010-03-12T13:18:00.000-08:00

The fire is lit, I have painted where necessary in my bedroom, made pizza, chiseled a hole in the sunroom wall to find the original painted clapboard underneath!

The whole house smells of spring flowers. Ana brought them over yesterday as a thank-you for the tea set.

A Stiff Salt Breeze

2010-03-10T12:17:00.000-08:00

Like a favored passenger on the deck of the Titanic, I huddled in blankets and hat in bright sunshine and stiff wind this morning - but not drinking beef tea. Strangely comforting it was too, like being looked after, as if an attentive steward at any moment would hurry to my side.

I am a little stymied because I still need one bolt of fabric, I am getting perilously close to the end of the last one and orders are coming in from the Design*Sponge article http://www.designspongeonline.com/2010/03/rough-linen-storage-beds.html
Still, it can't be a bad thing to relax a little: it is so easy to be on edge because the orders are overwhelming, then a few weeks later on edge for fear they are drying up!

I marvel that I still enjoy making them. Each and every one.

Two Little Maids

2010-03-08T16:04:00.001-08:00

That is the doll's tea service Cissy gave me, complete with a cow and chicken teapot, chick napkin rings. piglets on the sugar bowl.

And here are the dear little girls I passed it on to - perfect! Look at that smile!

Cat Bit Me

2010-03-01T11:03:00.000-08:00

I was trying to brush her - excuse me while I Google cat muzzles.

The annoying thing is that I can't handle fabric with blood on my hands, It is oozing past the bandage onto the keyboard.

The heading is a quote, my dear ones. Cissy didn't talk until she was over two, when the first words out of her mouth were, "Cat bit me." Then her eyes flashed and she said emphatically. "Naughty cat bit me!"

We had gone to Cornwall for a short holiday and were snowed in there over Christmas when the incident occurred, and she had been saving it up until we came back home.

Sister and Governor!

2010-02-23T23:37:00.000-08:00

King's Cup in the background.

Mucky Mouse

2010-02-16T11:33:00.000-08:00

I seemed to hit the keyboard with great verve and enthusiasm this morning despite not being able to make head nor tail of Google spreadsheets (how do I NAME a column? Surely that is 101).

In a momentary creative lull I doodled away at my keyboard with damp cloths and cotton wool buds and it is gratifying how much better it looks - in the light of the new overdesk Daylight striplight Stefan created, complete with matt black baffles so the light goes in a slit on the keyboard, not on the screen or into my eyes.

The mouse. I couldn't believe the filth. Much Mrs Meyers and GoofOff later, I seem to have stripped it of some degraded outer layer, and it took a toothpick to clear the grooves. It is like a skinned rabbit.

Even more fun was putting a new board into Stefan's computer: one little board, but to get to it we had to take out the four drives, the fan assembly and two memory boards, so while I was at it I vacuumed out as much dust as I could reach with my little computer vacuuming adaptor. I hope to heaven it all works now.

This is what we did: http://www.newertech.com/Static/articles/article_macenstein_eSATA.html

Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T22:34:00.000-08:00

Over now, fun and very productive. In the morning we had the pleasure of overhearing Allen on his clarinet - what a welcome addition! The fun was all the friends who called in, or whom we met walking Buckley, or in the street, all the champagne and cake, then wine and rather weird snacks into the night as Marz has wanted a website for a while, so Stefan got her one and it wasn't planned.

I suppose we were all so sociable because the weather has been so heavenly everyone in the neighborhood has been out walking around, smelling the blossom and just generally catching up. All the doors were open, I painted the panels for Stefan's new over-desk lights out on the deck, then cut the baffles and edged them with my Dremel before finally coming to grips with the new casing for Will's Chumby, now glued and clamped.

Tomorrow is a holiday as well - I wonder what we will find to do?

In the Material World

2010-02-10T07:02:00.000-08:00

Dawn this morning showed the thinnest sliver of waning moon over a rising tide, and the rumble of traffic on the Richmond Bridge through some trick of the wind. The frogs are in full chorus too, so I can only think they are in the freshwater puddle/lake on the far side of the inlet.

I was talking with Norma on Skype yesterday, she on her loggia with a roar of cicadas behind her, me with my frogs. What a world we live in!

There are other seasonal and more than seasonal changes too - the seawall has slipped to such an extent that there is now a bank a good ten feet further out into the bay, and several sections where we walk are noticeably lower. Yesterday at low tide we scrambled down and found such wonderful weathered logs from some ancient tree down there I was kicking myself once again for not bringing a camera. As we walked back the sun broke through to highlight chosen sections of the far hills so that suddenly a glowing green hillside would appear like the Promised Land, or sails would glow on the dull water.

I railed unforgivably the other day about how dull and suburban Marin could be, and I was wrong. The people may be unimaginative, but the setting is absolutely breath-taking.

I am reading Lawrence Durrell, not my favorite author but he slips down well enough, and his sour rantings against living in England are as unfair as mine here - there are plenty of people living in sacred enthrallment with their gardens and fields and woods in England, just as he was in Corfu. They must exist in Marin too, but how do I find them?

There Now!

2010-02-07T18:13:00.000-08:00

Isn't that better?

Hard at Work

2010-02-06T15:50:00.001-08:00

Painted Stefan's ceiling after taping off everything I didn't want plastered in white paint, but the spray painter was Not Good, paint dripping from my elbow, so I returned the thing in high dudgeon and carried on with roller and brush. Then the walls... then tore up the appalling carpet, and have just finished ripping up the lino underneath, dear reader. And what did I find but quite respectable polished floors! What possessed the previous owners?!
So, I have remounted the curtain rail at ceiling level and hung the new white linen curtains I had made last week, and it is coming on nicely. Photos soon - Stefan has torn his edit suite apart to rewire it so downloading not quite possible at the moment.

I Came Back To...

2010-02-02T21:07:00.001-08:00

Rosie comes to Tea

2010-01-31T19:47:00.000-08:00

Breaking my Duck

2010-01-28T09:53:00.000-08:00

Must...blog...again!

Back in sunny California (Stefan swears it rained every day I was away) I looked up 42 degrees Celsius, and it was 107!! No wonder I was having trouble with the heat in Oz!

My blogging difficulties come from backlog, especially since I had such trouble downloading my photos. I want to start at the beginning which is so far back! So first, Sydney, where I stayed with Paddy in her achingly chic new apartment in Edgecliff, then we drove through Berrima, had lunch in Bowral with Minty, then drove on to Yass to visit old school friend Helen, and meet up with ditto Annabel (the cleverest girl in the class) and none of us had changed a bit...

The next day we went to the Impressionists in Canberra, then to the National Portrait Gallery and marvellous modern Supreme Court - curious juxtaposition born home by a self-portrait of Alan Bond. We spent the night in a family-run motel in Wadonga then set out to visit my brother Colin in Gisborne, which shall be another chapter.

Code

2010-01-14T22:12:00.000-08:00

A sudden thought, and an urgent email home: THE ARTICHOKES ARE IN THE PAINTING CUPBOARD! Paddy rolled about laughing, said it sounded like the sort of message used to mobilise the Free French.

Sydney!

2010-01-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

I am staying with my dear friend Paddy in her glamorous flat in Edgecliff, and since I arrived we have been gallivanting. Yesterday we walked across town to meet Norma and Angela at the art gallery, the lunch at Danks and enough amazing housie shops to make my head spin.

Earlier in the week I took the ferry across the harbour and spent the day with June in Mosman, all morning in the se at Chinaman's Beach, then mangoes, blissful. The next day met up with old school friends for lunch, and the day after that up to the Hawkesbury for a fish feast that Siena had been fantasising since she came back from Laos.

Next week we road-trip, with Margaret for the first part of the journey through Bowral, Yass and Canberra visiting friends at each port of call, down to Gisborne to visit my brother, then I fly to the Gold Coast to see my mum!

Limbo Time

2009-12-29T21:56:00.000-08:00

Suspended animation between Christmas and New Year for all that the orders are coming in again - but this evening we did the perfect thing and watched 'Bye Bye Birdie', prompted by the episode in Mad Men when they all froth and dribble at the thought of Ann-Margret. She was worth frothing and dribbling for, but I did't realise what exuberant good fun it was, and that so many songs I know come from that show. When it finished I made a bee-line for youtube and have been sitting singing along for two hours. Simple pleasures.

I am inheriting William's old laptop (inheriting may be too gentle a word, I am relieving Felix of it, but he is being very sweet about it) and I can't wait to sit in airports with it like a grown-up.

Gnarly Day

2009-12-24T21:29:00.000-08:00

Well, some things went right, I have dispatched orders which piled up while we were filming, but to clear them I had to do the buttonholes manually. At one point I heard myself saying "only thirty-six to go!" So packed them all up nicely in tissue paper, Stefan bravely carried them to the post office, at which point the new machine, bought to do buttonholes, turned up on the doorstep.

On Skype I could hear my mum but she couldn't hear me, her phone was playing up, and we ended up typing back and forth.

My watch has stopped.

Didn't even get a walk.

This Made me Laugh

2009-12-17T09:55:00.001-08:00

Oh dear, I know I probably shouldn't do this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwqWcn2gbTM

Going Soft

2009-12-17T09:45:00.000-08:00

This made me cry...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVHHyiga6mo&feature=related

On the Other Hand

2009-12-15T12:16:00.000-08:00

After all the hard work of last week it was hard to coast to a close, so I cleared and sorted the sideboard drawers wondering once again how could I have too few tablecloths and so many napkins - about four dozen? Ah, sweet mystery.

Then my ever-chaotic bedside drawer. Very pleased to find my fountain pen, five nail files and the usual plethora of pens which I weeded down (I wish there were a place to donate them!). At which point it was time to confront the wardrobe, or as they say over here, walk-in closet, though I haven't been able to walk into it for a while as my tool chests are on the floor.

Big plastic bag: ill-chosen shoes went first, then the pile of out-of-favour garments I had been stock-piling on the top shelf.

I managed to clear two shelves completely to store my now colour-sorted fabrics in good order, squeezing my clothes back another rung in scale of importance. I would be quite happy with a uniform! Especially an Armani uniform...

I did realise something else this morning as I sat up in bed in great satisfaction with coffee, my pashmina and one of Louise's nighties. I am two people. One side of me wants the very best, and the other side slashes away in paint-stained clothes and sentimental knickers you wouldn't give a bag lady, and not just for utility. I like being mucky. I always want to have the option. Call it respect for the process, it certainly makes organising my clothes complicated. Maybe I need two wardrobes etc, like dishwashers in a Kosher household.

Ice Wool

2009-12-13T11:35:00.001-08:00

Leo and Axina sent me pictures of this strange stuff they call ice wool - I have never heard of it before. Maybe I have to go to Gotland.

Scampering

2009-12-12T16:41:00.001-08:00

What a busy week, Stefan editing flat out, and I was trying to keep up with orders while maintaining a happy working atmosphere for clients, scrubbing the curry off the table before I could put my precious white linen on it again, providing cups of tea and soothing words.

I am so thrilled with my secondary work area and have been refining it, cutting the tabletop back and rounding the front corners so it fits the space. I have a better cloth on it - actually the pale denim that was the original headboard, how neat - and have ordered many cunning little hooks from http://thehardwarehut.com, I recommend them. I don't think I need a curtain over the glass section of the door, I can always hear people coming so shouldn't be startled, and I'll put up a little mirror opposite as well, good feng shui. As soon as the new battery is in the camera I will take some photos.

My main need is a neat little chair since we stretch the use of the existing ones, and I need to re-jig the covers of the table for its dual role of potting/ironing.

Conceptual

2009-12-09T19:15:00.000-08:00

The world is spinning: I am suddenly seeing our only door as the back door, because that way I can use the hall like a room, for gardening things, and potting up, as a much more intimate, homely, utilitarian space. It is big enough.

It started because I couldn't find a place for my pretend French pot rack, which has now been sanded and waxed and has turned out beautifully. The only place I could think to put it was in our 6' by 9' front hall, opposite the front door - a space which also holds the big laundry cupboard. Suddenly with the pot rack and the ironing table (put here purely to get it out of the living room while we were photographing), it turned into something warmer, more purposeful, and I could envisage the table as a potting table, and the door as a door onto the garden, not a fortress front door to keep strangers out, something that has to be barricaded and watched.

I don't really like people.

So just by juggling the furniture, I realise what a misanthrope I am, and how suspicious I have been all this time about the front door (it lets people in: was it it really on my side?), and how much more I own the hall now that it has a purpose.

The Strength of Ten

2009-12-06T08:09:00.001-08:00

Before breakfast with Mary I painted the new pot shelf I copied from a blog I now can't find(!!), put new knobs on the laundry room doors, put glides under the big block which holds the centre speaker, put the carefully saved old hooks into the pot rack, put a new hook behind the laundry door to hold my hat and the dog lead (instead of cluttering my office with them), re-hung our only valuable oil, finally screwed the bases to the two wicker hampers which hold our firewood, re-gussied and tidied, and had a lovely long deep hot bath before our client turned up to chose music.

I tracked down and inserted three of those wickedly small expensive light bulbs for the cooker hood, under cabinet lighting and picture light respectively and rehung my favorite picture in a more prominent position, beside the fireplace under the picture light.

I mounted my two new oars over Stefan's sofa, and we set up the green screen to film William on the bike rollers to re-create the bike crash for our hospital film - very sweaty all round, and good fun.

Then we lit the fire, watched two episodes of Mad Men and I slept for ten hours - good!

Winter Activities

2009-12-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

Pears always remind me of my father, he considered the flavour better than that of papaya and even mango. I think they taste almost tropical, so smooth and subtle. I have a sideboard full.

At a stroke I have improved the new ironing table AND solved the old headboard problem: by dismantling the headboard and carving a new tabletop 5'x3' from the sheet of wood. This small padded table is easy to work at, I have set it up with the iron and cut and press while watching Rachel Maddow, what could be better?

Thanksgiving and After

2009-11-29T11:40:00.000-08:00

Today for breakfast I has more of the wonderful food Dee and Ed prepared for Thanksgiving, eight people and two dogs, a wood fire. And now I have my own leftovers from a dinner party last night: four people, one cat and a wood fire. There is something so grounding and soothing about a wood fire, not because it is cold - this morning I was kayaking at high tide, and my washing is drying in brilliant sunshine. The sun is low, dazzling off the water, the rooms are full of dancing reflections from the ceilings, everything is clean and in apple-pie order partly I think because this weather is so energising, the deed follows the thought.

I am avoiding any thoughts of Christmas. I have yet to do anything practical with the vintage Christmas skeleton tree I found. A woosh of white spray paint? (http://www.abeachcottage.com/my_weblog/2009/11/a-diy-beach-cottage-christmas-wreath-for-a-dollar.html ) Certainly a flutter of hysteria, and mall-dread, tinsel-loathing and horror at the prospect of the tsunami of food coming my way.

From two years ago: "theory that Christmas trees are the sad little tarts of trees: uprooted, tricked out for our pleasure then ruthlessly discarded when they lose their bloom. Rape and pillage."

November 20

2009-11-20T10:26:00.000-08:00

Everything is happening at once, including the long-awaited rain, so I am immensely gratified that yesterday afternoon I bought and installed a new soft-top and windows on the Jeep, filthy job. The old one leaked, and the windows were so cloudy we were a danger to ourselves and others, so we took a silly little tour of triumph last night, exclaiming all the while how we could see through the rear window! And see cars in the outside lane!

There are plenty of other reason to be cheerful - everyone is well and happily occupied including us, in fact I am verging on overwhelmed but have been managing so I am a little vaunty. The rush production of the last few weeks has been finished and very well received and we have other work into the winter. My dream come true.

Happy Birthday Will!

Chicago

2009-11-13T02:06:00.000-08:00

We have just this minute come home from Nashville via Chicago, complete with a hair-raising gallop from one terminal to another because the first plane was late. Do you see what the time is? 2!

We were able to visit old friends in Nashville from twenty years ago, we had done business together, and it was wonderful catching up, sitting in their triple volume living room in a house based on Tara. We still have the beautiful wedding-ring quilt Waynes's mother Mabel had sent to me in London, all those years ago.

Now to the beddy-bed-bed, with deep gratitude.

I See Dead People

2009-11-05T18:59:00.001-08:00

I love scavenging - 'thrifting' in PoliteSpeak -as much as the next person, and here in Marin the pickings are good. I tend not to seek out garage sales since every item I bring into our tight little ship requires that another goes overboard. Last week I passed up a mid-century solid maple tray table with the requisite exquisite sticky-out legs for $4 at the S.A. because I really didn't need it (I certainly hope it went to a good home), but there was an estate sale in a road which always excites my curiosity, so we stopped in on our way back from the Miwok Camp.

Big, comfortable house. Dining room overflowing with glasses and crockery, maybe twenty sets. Piles of copper and more humble jelly moulds. I counted nine clocks.

Outside was even worse: half a dozen barbeques, Foreman grills etc, some still with their boxes. Tables and tables of junk piled high. I had a vision of a couple surrounded and eventually overwhelmed by all that dreadful stuff they had accumulated, until one day it was there and they weren't. Then strangers picking through.

We didn't stay long. I rescued a solid, sensible little pan to boil eggs, 75 cents. I am not as austere as I would like, but I hope when I buy the farm my leavings are in better order than that.

Done!

2009-11-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

Do you know the scene in Castaway where Tom Hanks dances around bellowing "I have made fi-re!"? I feel a bit like that, because after all the prevarication, procrastination, fear, mimsiness and excuses, this morning I scraped and primed the eaves on the side of the house over the water. Yes, dangling over the water on the sloping roof.

Why am I far more fearful now than when I was young and had more to lose?

Yesterday we were shooting, and tomorrow we are shooting, LA and Nashville next week, so I think the pressure galvanised me into action. I love the day job.

Owls

2009-11-01T06:17:00.000-08:00

Up with the lark to see owls yesterday, which certainly doesn't sound right. We were filming for WildCare, a favorite client: Juan-Carlos had two stuffed owls and buckets of owl pellets, tweezers and probes, about twenty excitable children and their parents, all in the Miwok Meadows at China Camp under enormous mossy bay laurels. It was fascinating to see the children - even the most rambunctious - so engrossed in teasing tiny skulls, teeth, pelvic bones out of the wodges of fur and feather. Juan-Carlos explained it all in English and in Spanish and I even understood some of the Spanish, hearing it like that.

It really makes work easy to have beautiful little children, low sunlight streaming through the trees in a beautiful setting, as opposed to, say, shooting the manufacture of faggots, all mixers full of offal and grey gravy. Much easier.
http://www.wildcarebayarea.org/site/PageServer

Thoughts Provoked

2009-10-30T09:01:00.001-07:00

http://sharingthejourney.co.uk/writing/blog-building/how-to-beat-the-blogging-blues/

A good sensible blog for introspection - although I'm feeling I am co-operating far more with the universe right now than it is with me, shades of the president and his opposition.

Good Intentions

2009-10-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

This morning I doled out sage household advice to my violet-eyed sister (who was whacked in the eye by her own stove) and it rebounded onto me so I have been bottoming areas untouched for years.

First I cut and primed new trim to replace the rotten piece on the South-East corner Elly had pointed out to me, then I scraped and primed the end of the roof beam which had sported a strange standing pipe (to hold a flag?). In the fullness of time I want to carve a figurehead and mount it there, but priming exposed wood is a good modest way to start.

I scoured myself, bedding, all towels etc to get rid of all traces of Disease, vacuumed and all that normal stuff, so here I am at lunch time with really, very little to show for it. All I have done is get to stasis. Disheartening.

Intentions:
Sort my two large laundry hampers of fabrics and textiles
Clean out my kitchen drawers since they seem to be filling up with fluff and crumbs
Get all my books in one place
Cull magazines, again
Get all my CDs in one place

Sick

2009-10-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

I'm sick and it is so boring. I have marinated myself in warm saline which seems to have done some good, but I won't go out until tomorrow, keep it to myself.

I have sewn the side seams of Blaze's curtains but the tops need grommets, close to one hundred of them, so I need to wait til she is back to check on size and colour. Actually that is an excuse.

And we were doing so well.

To Conjure with: Dionysius and his Names

2009-10-17T18:45:00.000-07:00

Aigobolos (slayer of goats)
Agrios (wild one)
Aisymnetes (elected monarch, judge)
Akratophoros (of unmixed wine)
Aktaios (of the seacoast)
Anax (lord)
Anthios (god of all blossoming things)
Anthroporraistes (slayer of men)
Areion (martial one)
Arretos (ineffable)
Arsenothelys (man-womanly)
Auxites (bringer of growth)
Bassareus (fox god, Thracian)
Botryophoros (bearer of grape clusters)
Briseus (son of the nymphs)
Bromios (boisterous)
Charidotes (giver of grace)
Choreutês (dancer)
Chthonios (subterranean)
Dasullios (of the thicket, wild-wood)
Dendrites (of the tree)
Dikerotes (two-horned)
Diphyes (two-natured)
Dithyrambos (of the dithyrambic hymn)
Diwonusojo (Linear B)
Druphoros (oak-bearer)
Eiraphiotes (insewn)
Eleuthereus (emancipator)
Endendros (tree)
Eriphios (goat kid)
Euanthes (fair blossoming)
Eubouleus (good counselor)
Euios (from the ritual cry)
Hagnos (pure, holy)
Hues (of moisture)
Hugiates (dispenser of health)
Iackhos (crier, caller)
Iatros (healer)
Isodaites (divider of sacrificial meat)
Katharsios (he who releases)
Kissobryos (ivy-wrapped)
Kissokomes (ivy-crowned)
Kissos (ivy)
Korymbophoros (cluster-laden)
Kresios (Cretan)
Kryphios (hidden, secret)
Lampteros (torch-bearer, of lights)
Leibenos (of libations)
Lenaios (of the wine press)
Liknites (in the liknon)
Limnaios (of the marsh)
Luaeus (he who frees)
Lusios (liberator)
Mainomenos (frenzied)
Manikos (mad one)
Mantis (prophet, seer)
Meilikhios (mild, gentle)
Melanaigis (he of the black goatskin)
Melpomenos (harp-singer)
Morychos (dark one)
Nyktelios (nocturnal)
Nyktiphaês (night-illuminating)
Nyktipolos (night prowler)
Omadios (of the raw feast)
Omestes (feeds on raw flesh)
Orthos (the erect)
Pelagios (of the sea)
Perikionios (of the column)
Ploutodotês (bestower of riches)
Polyeides (of many images)
Polygethes (bringer of many joys)
Polymorphos (many formed)
Polyonomos (many named)
Polyparthenos (of many maidens)
Protogonos (first born)
Protrugaios (feast before the vintage)
Psilax (winged)
Pyrigenes (fire born)
Sannion (wagging one)
Skêptouchos (scepter-bearer)
Soter (savior)
Sphaleotas (he who causes stumbling)
Staphylos (the grape)
Sukites (of the fig tree)
Taurokeros (bull horned)
Taurophagos (bull devourer)
Tauropôn (bull faced)
Teletarches (lord of initiations)
Thriambos (of the triumphal hymn)
Thullophoros (bearer of boughs)
Thuoneus (son of Thyone-Semele)
Thursophoros (thyrsus bearer)
Trigonos (thrice-born)
Zagreus (hunter)

Maenads

2009-10-17T18:40:00.000-07:00

It had never occurred to me that in my lifetime I would find myself treading grapes to make wine - and a sensuous experience it is too. Four ladies after a good lunch, first dancing on the grapes we harvested that morning, then on to earlier batches which were warm and slightly effervescent and left our legs richly coloured.

Felix and Liz were filming with me; Stefan and Will were shooting Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco. Can't wait to see how all our film turned out.

A Typhoon and Autumn

2009-10-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

The past few days we have been able to revel in the exuberance of autumn, a cool buffeting breeze when we walk along the bay, at a good pace because we are not lethargic with heat. I love the feeling of my clothes on my body, the urge to make soup, the smell of woodsmoke again and today blessed rain, the tail end of a typhoon in Japan, who would have thought.

Yesterday the marina was busy with people battening down the hatches, and I took in the summer cushions from the deck, unhooked my ropes of buoys and painters since they bang in a high wind, finally put boxes and the pole-cam base into the store room, stored the umbrella, folded the chairs, all with a busy, joyful heart like Little Grey Rabbit. We saw the fields laid bare and waste, my sisters.

Axina's Hedgehog

2009-10-12T10:32:00.001-07:00

Prepare to say awwwww....

All the way from Gothenburg.

Aw, Shucks

2009-10-11T22:12:00.001-07:00

The Oyster Feast.

A Secret Parcel

2009-10-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

My mum had been hinting that something would arrive soon, and it would be a surprise and it certainly was- my father's old sailing apron, decorated all over with nautical flags! The one by one kind with gnomic messages like 'I am dragging my anchor'. Useful.

I shall give it a little love then take a photo.

A Glorious Walk

2009-10-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

A fierce wind blew yesterday and left the air crisp and cool, so we walked up to the ridge but north over it and back along past the horses and tall sequoias on Main Drive. Bliss is made of simple things.

Tea this afternoon with William and brilliant chocolate cake, so thin soup tonight, and up before six tomorrow to take Elly to meet the Yosemite bus.

Galloping into Autumn

2009-09-30T12:21:00.000-07:00

It has certainly been busy here, with Elly from Aups (gone into San Fran this morning on the ferry), Andre and X'xenia from Moscow (went back on Sunday), and a sudden influx of work and new clients - so welcome! We have one more day of shooting for the first Fortunatus film, then Angel Island on Saturday, then the Kidney Foundation, Nancy Pelosi which will be soooo interesting. Has the recession ended?

Lots of sewing too, finally assembling the wavy-edged bordered linen bedspread for Carolyn's clients (every adjective seemed to add to its complexity), sixteen very, very short curtains on grommets for a boat in Sausalito, and this morning doll's clothes for a client who mother used to sew for her grand-daughter but sadly died, so it was all Peter Pan collars and lace-edged pantaloons today. I have a delivery to make, supplies to buy, ten custom cushions for the Duxiana display which should look very handsome, I love the colours, chocolate and caramel, and keeping up with http://www.abeachcottage.com/my_weblog/2009/09/new-beach-cottage-pillows-some-to-giveaway.html#comments and all the lovely comments which will make my head swell.

You can tell I am procrastinating here at the computer, can't you!

Filth

2009-09-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

The Bath after Buckley
Buckley after the Bath
...and he had many, many fleas...in fact a lot of those little black dots ARE fleas.

No Pain

2009-09-19T17:35:00.000-07:00

Elly arrived on Thursday, we took her to Sonoma yesterday, I had a mad panic as my cushions hadn't arrived at Coastal Living so I made four MORE last night and sent them off Fedex overnight today. We had a good walk with Buckley over the ridge this morning, then after lunch the tide was high so we kayaked, and ended up at Mary's for drinks, before other-Mary's party. I FEEL WONDERFUL! NO PAIN!!

Lust Again

2009-09-14T23:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.woodentoddlertoys.com/24kredinrowo.html
I don't need them or even really want them, I just like the idea of them. Maybe when I have a gigantic craft room.

Twenty-Six

2009-09-11T17:33:00.000-07:00

We drove back from Napa this afternoon in a welter of heat - shimmering air above cars, street, people. When we stopped at the roadworks by Union Street I amused myself by counting the traffic lights for that one little intersection with two controlled left turns.

Obviously there is duplication while they do the work, but the total was twenty-six. Or the heat was getting to me.

Max and Suscipe

2009-09-08T17:52:00.001-07:00

Who did what.

The Turn of the Year

2009-09-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

We have just passed the milestone of Labor Day long weekend, the first day of which I stayed in my nightie with the front door locked, cutting out cushions, reading, generally being anti-social, very reviving. On Sunday we went to Kyra's sixth birthday party and met loads more neighbours - what a wonderful community this is! - and in the evening lethal cocktails and dinner in Mary Mary's glorious garden (photos on http://www.cabinonthewater.blogspot.com). Stefan has really captured the essence of it, tamed jungle!

Yesterday I finally repainted the kitchen, although I lightened the paint I had chosen, drastically. We went out at mid-day for a walk and to deliver Kyra's photos to Trip and Amy and on the way discovered Mary back from Burning Man, trying to adjust to the lesser reality, so we stopped and chatted, then on to Mary Mary to ransom Stefan's hat: he had to stand modestly while she enthused about his photos - actually, she raved - so he was tremendously tickled and has agreed to take more for her website, to convey the glorious abundance and mystery she creates which is not coming across at the moment.

On the way back Carolyn spotted us from Mary's house and we joined them for lunch, Carolyn just back from Monterey. We rolled home to cutting in and second coats and Mary Burroughs dropped in, then Carolyn on her way back from shopping to see how the bias edging on her commission was working out.

All in all a wonderful weekend, and I barely cooked!

Utilitarianism

2009-09-04T19:19:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we went to the East Bay to Ikea, to get onto the water and general outing (is this sad?). I was dazzled by all the ideas, ideas in profusion, clever uses, grand gestures, wonderful colours. The execution disappoints me sometimes, but when you think we-the-people are the recipients it is breath-taking for the price. Other stores have my number - Conran's anyone? - but I love the exuberance and generosity of Ikea. They are so relentlessly essence-oriented, not image-oriented, not branding-oriented. I think William Morris would have approved.

On the other hand I am slightly ashamed of liking anything by Ralph Lauren, so preppy and elite and waspish.

Memories of France

2009-09-03T08:41:00.000-07:00

This blog has definitely been taking a back seat to cabinonthewater and general busy-ness - maybe I have been thinking less!

This photo was one of Stefan's presents to me, just what I've always wanted.

I Want

2009-08-30T21:06:00.001-07:00

12' of 1.5" hemp mariner's rope
Cedar Essence
8 x 6" boat cleats
Quart semi-gloss dark blue paint
.5 gallon light ice blue semi-gloss paint
Pear's Soap
Nivea cream
Neutrogena oil
Honeysuckle bush (the regular kind)
To * paint the kitchen
* refinish the floor
*replace the curtains

That's all so far!

Indian Summer

2009-08-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

It was so very hot yesterday that last night we sat outside reading on the deck until past nine, and this morning I watered early as it will be over 100 degrees. Everything slows down, we eat only salads, and apart from a foray into town to bank and make a delivery I avoid going inland.

Sitting outside like that for a long time is quite different from our usual in and out. There were little children playing on Charlie's dock and their laughter sounded very sweet. There were few birds apart from some avocets, the water was high and still and there was no breeze at all. I thought of the ancient mariner while we ate melon, and grapes from our own vine, and this morning, figs.

Distraction

2009-08-20T03:26:00.000-07:00

Raccoons are rampaging in the store room below my office, clicking and purring to each other and re-arranging the furniture.

Cissy redid the Myers-Briggs test, and I did too, since I am awake, and I am now INFJ. Have certainly changed over the years. She differs from me in one variable: guess what it is.

Since we were at a party last night and I am walking with Dagmar in the morning - I wish I could sleep!

Missing Moon

2009-08-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

The ferocious cat Moon, eighteen years old and fearsome, went missing last Saturday. This morning I saw three turkey vultures flapping on Teresa's dock so I asked Tom and he said yes, they had found Moon's body in the rough reeds around the lagoon, led by the vultures.

So, vultures have their uses.

Last I saw Moon was 9.30 Saturday night and there he was, asleep in the middle of the road as usual, and showed no signs of stirring when Buckley ran up to him. Absolutely intrepid, he will be missed.

Kareoke!

2009-08-17T12:23:00.000-07:00

Last night Felix took me to a kareoke bar on California Street with his friend Becca, and I had such a blast. some singers had wonderful voices! Some didn't. The hardest part is that you can't hear your own voice over the music.

When we got out we walked to Bob's the local 24 hour doughnut shop. Local 24 hour doughnut shop! Is the world mad? I had one nauseating bite of Felix's, conclude I don't understand doughnuts.

Stumbling around this morning doing none of things I had intended, but have been cast as an Eastern European grandmother in an ad, this afternoon, so on with the thick eyebrows, babuska shawl and Dracula accent, and off.

Another Meteor

2009-08-13T14:19:00.000-07:00

I dragged sofa cushions out onto the deck last night and saw an amazing meteor, long and bright. It seemed so close I half expected to hear the splash.

Perseids

2009-08-12T06:49:00.000-07:00

"Stand on the trestles of the world
and view the humours of the fair
Where fiery javelins are hurled
and God leads round his starry Bear."

I slept outside last night to see the meteors. A dark red half moon rose around midnight, I watched in the darkness, and I saw one! Then I fell asleep, and when I woke again I was covered in dew and it had clouded over, so I came inside to the comfort of my darling bed.

Busy busy

2009-08-11T15:46:00.001-07:00

A diverse day, which started with phone calls to distributors in England and on the East Coast, at 4.30 am, then a wild meeting with a potential client, then with my bag of tools to help put up a new bathroom cupboard for Cissy: cupboard, 14.5", space between the studs, slightly less. Let's just say it won't work its way loose any time soon. Blessings upon my wonderful electric planer.

So, I have found a snowman suit, now all I must do is track down, audition and price Chinese contortionists.

A Rush of Blood to the Head

2009-08-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

We have been caught up in un travail à deux for http://coastal-cushions.com, which I have found exciting, enervating, terrifying and thrilling - all too much emotion for comfort. Somehow as part of it I have been stripping rooms methodically of their ornament, and it all looks so much better! Just snaps into better focus - Carolyn says it is the improved fung shui which has led to our burst of productivity. If that is so I'll happily empty the house.

Good blog: http://beachcottagelove.blogspot.com

August

2009-08-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

We are living life with a degree of intensity right now, partly a product of the recession but not totally. I am having to persist with marketing, when what I would far prefer would be to make something different and additional, like a bee flitting from flower to flower. There are strange eddies and anomalies: Stefan has sold three of his 'Trial" series in three days. I have been advertising on craigslist and finished my first commission on Saturday.

We had a lovely weekend, Felix came over, and Ghazi too, freshly back from Paris and head-turningly elegant. We bumped into Cissy and George in an open house in Corte Madera and all ended up with an uproarious family party, Felix joined it on his way back to the city. We couldn't shoot on Saturday morning but it will keep., and later today I will follow all my leads, I don't want to pounce on people first thing on Monday morning.

I have been reading the Happy Days column in the New York Times, an insight into the culture in its diversity. I smile that so many of the tips they give for saving money are simply our way of life, like drinking tap water at home or out, buying generically and fresh, ingredients rather than made-up stuff.

I love love love the idea of simplicity in itself, and would happily create a sort of uniform (or more honestly, a set of different uniforms). Currently I am dreaming up and will soon create straight leg linen trousers with shell or T tops, maybe even a tunic. My mind has already fluttered ahead to very light linen tops with more detail, pleated necks, bias cut, some peasanty but stripped back. Yum.

Summer is nearly always a grinding time for me no matter how pleasant the weather, and as the days shorten and freshen I take on new life like a parched plant granted shade and cool, sweet rain. Give my roots rain.

Surfing!

2009-07-28T18:32:00.001-07:00

Boogie boarding with Mary and Jessica at Stinson Beach - we had a blast! That's me on the right catching a wave.

Aunt Love

2009-07-22T17:14:00.000-07:00

My mum at the birthday party for Bob Love and his aunt, who is 104. Good party!

Samuel Goldwyn Lives

2009-07-20T22:49:00.000-07:00

"That's a bridge far under the water."

Said by Felix while dismissing some long-ago domestic crime.

Good Lunch

2009-07-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

Latest Commission

2009-07-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

Sixteen Sunbrella cushions for a marvellous Mexican-inspired concrete bench, high on a hill in Marin.

Green and Smooth

2009-07-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

This morning on our walk Barbara was extolling the virtues of green smoothies and I am intrigued - well, she is a nutritionalist, so she knows what she is talking about. You drink a quart of green smoothie a day (collard greens, kale and spinach, carrot, turnip and beet tops, and fruit so you can choke it down) and there is a spring to your step, you feel and sleep better and you lose weight (as well you might, since a quart is going to fill you up). I have a blender - maybe not the Vitamix 4500 Turbo which is $320 on the internet, I checked - but it's a start. This is the silly season after all.

Heat

2009-07-19T18:05:00.000-07:00

True summer heat, brutal and relentless but then we asked for it, driving in an open car up to Novato, like entering an oven. Coming back I could feel the temperature drop - first, my ears stopped throbbing, then the arm beside the window stopped burning, and finally I could feel delicious cool little runnels in my interstices. I am so glad, just so heartily thankful that we live by the water.

Everything is interesting right now, from recipes and fabrics to old friends, to NEW friends, work... I am both sick of marketing and keen to push on with it. I tell myself that I need discomfort to rout complacency, that it keeps my edge (if I have an edge to begin with). I am certainly not warm fuzzy, resting on my laurels. I need a few more laurels to make that comfortable. If I felt secure, I'd just worry about other stuff.

Marin Yacht Club Car and Boat Show

2009-07-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

Well, the boats certainly look much bigger close up! I was struck by the Las Vegas styling too, all ultra shiny veneers and glittery synthetic bedspreads, in beige and brown and black. Most strange, like a poor person's idea of moneyed.

The vintage cars were interesting too, and after having driven past that marina for seven years I enjoyed seeing inside. Great views of Mount Tam. All in all though the County Fair is more fun, with the hens and cows, and the piglets in their racing silks.

Giddy on Colour

2009-07-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was so busy neither of us stepped out of the house, but I finished the sofa hems, covered two chairs and made speaker cosies of linen scrim, very satisfactory. we then settled down to experiment with our keywords, far more fun than I would have thought. And today I shot some room sets, it all is progress. How are people going to love my cushions if they don't know they exist?

I definitely have favorites. I love the diagonal navy and copper 'O', but then again the soft blue, natural and rust 'W' is great too. Red ochre and olive 'T' from Mombasa is a great one too, but oddly enough the blue and yellows are the ones that are selling best. I will never understand.

George's Present

2009-07-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

I couldn't buy it so I had to make it - and it works!

High Summer

2009-07-15T07:58:00.000-07:00

What a rollicking time we have been having!

Dee and Ed had their barbeque on Monday, which gave it an edge, and since it was in the high nineties I spent a lot of my time in the pool, along with Scout and a darling little naked nymph who lifted her arms and said 'Carry me!', so we went round and round in the water, visiting everyone sitting on the sides with their feet in.

Yesterday morning we visited Chris and Karen in Petaluma, to update their website and for a most satisfying debrief of Pinot, and then some inspiring brainstorming. Dizzy with it all, I sewed in the afternoon until Mary hauled me off to swim at China Camp, since we hit 100 degrees. It was wonderful, and I will do it again. She is very athletic so I can see she is a Good Influence.

I am peeling in sheets after falling asleep in the sun last Monday, it feels like being young again.

Today we are experimenting with Elly's cool-house method: shutting the windows and shades as opposed to opening everything and letting the air go through. Of course Elly's house is stone...

Ever Wondered What's at the End of the Rainbow?

2009-07-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

Stromboli

2009-07-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

Remember the wrenchingly vulnerable sequence in Stromboli when Ingrid Bergman, foreign on her Sicilian husband's island, goes out into the village and implores the women to come and visit her, to see how she has white-washed her house and planted flowers, and made curtains from old clothes to make it her home? I want to go onto the highways and bring people in to see the milk paint on the old concrete floor, how smooth and inviting it looks.

Birdland

2009-07-08T15:02:00.000-07:00

We are still enchanted by our three little swallows and their wonderfully fierce, forthright mother.

The dock is her preferred feeding place, because she can swoop by to feed them, barely stopping. They are practicing flying and look like little bumblebees, rounded and sedate beside their jetset mother.

We have many song bird too, suddenly. I slept out on the deck last night, the moon was so beautiful, the water high and a wonderful breeze, no flies or mosquitoes so far this year. I just drifted, suspended over the water, then went early to Mary's house to finish putting up the trim in her new rooms.

Home again now, back at the data base, haunted by wondering: is this the best use of my time?

Fledglings

2009-07-06T19:02:00.000-07:00

We ate outside this evening despite the cool breeze coming straight from the Pacific, engrossed in the three swallow fledglings sitting on the rail of the dock waiting for their mother, who had obviously said, "Stay there!" They fluffed their feathers in the sun and tried brave short hops over the water, while she flew past and fed them one at a time without even hovering - you can see her in the middle of the top photo. Truly miraculous.

I am finding the data entry far easier today, my synapses must have adjusted. Maybe the fierce exercise of ripping up the carpet (cathartic), or maybe the delicious, forbidden sun-bathing has refreshed my spirit. The porch looks far better in its naked state, all cleanly painted and bare except for the floor, which is scraped and bare but strange colours. I need to mend the cracks, then prime, then paint, but I don't want it to look TOO respectable. and all of that is rather secondary to our two business ventures, which take up every minute.

I have stigmata from the nails in the skirting boards.

Cheering Up

2009-07-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

Building blocks for the effort to pull self from the slough:
gardened and swept up leaves, planted out geranium cuttings and took honeysuckle slips, to replace the starveling bougainvillea.

Took delicious picnic to China Camp and ate right on the beach under a tree, admiring the shacks, the boats and the babies, and the glorious smell of the maquis.

Finished all 300 database Pinot entries.

Lovely chat with my insomniac mum, from her laptop.

Painted toenails.

That little lot should do it.

Anoushik just rang from the bank to say my business Visa has been approved with a limit of $7000. What are they smoking?!

PS also walked Buckley in a limpid, moody summer evening, and got a handful more of honeysuckle.

A State of Grace

2009-07-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

In an early morning scrabble for virtue I dusted, sorted, cleaned, and now am dressed and ready in everything but spirit to go and peddle my wares.

Shame

2009-07-01T10:45:00.001-07:00

When I do something that is original and difficult, my own creation, if it doesn't succeed immediately I feel a blast of shame, rage, contempt and impatience directed at me. Where does that come from? I associate it with: spraining Norma's ankle at age six while putting on her sandals, the doctor ripped into me; tidying the work bench in the garage at age seven or thereabouts and my father was not pleased; his exclamation at another point, "You're meant to be an intelligent girl!"; Mrs Murphy burning my sewing because I was not doing it the way I was meant to (we had an open fire in the classroom); being punished for catching Tim's hand in the car door and knowing there was something cumulative about the anger behind the punishment. I was a bumptious child, cocky and self-willed.

I also remember the absolute conviction at age four that my father was bathing us for my mother's sake, not our own. When I think about it, he was only twenty-six.

Virgin Territory

2009-06-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

Everything I do at the moment seems to be something I haven't done before, and it wears on the spirit. Whinge and Grizzle.

I try to do at least two significant PROGRESS things a day, in with all the normal maintenance and routine. Keep calm and carry on.

Beautiful Site

2009-06-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

ludwigaslinen.com

Ludwiga has some of the most beautiful monograms I have ever seen.

An Extroverted Sunday

2009-06-29T07:03:00.000-07:00

Saturday we shot all the Seattle cushions, Sunday I finished the last thirteen China Blue letters then we dressed smartly and off to Fort Mason for Pinot Days, which was wonderful! I could never have foreseen that several people spotted my trade name-tag and said yes, I've seen your trailer, or, you worked with Jamie, and one man had seen us filming at wineries for the Pomo Indians and remembered. First time for that sort of recognition in America, I took it for granted in our circles in London. The whole event was jumping, and professional, with knowledgeable drinkers, a pleasure.

Stefan had parked in Chrissy Fields (dropping me off out of consideration for my high heels), so we walked back across the grass watching San Francisco at play, kites flying, bikes, scooters, skates, little children on family picnics, then drove to William's place where he was recovering form a three-hour bike ride. Felix came back and we all talked and disputed, and Felix put my first Mombasa up on Etsy and introduced me to Google Analytics. Have to get my keywords right.

Sunday Ned and Drew called in on granny before heading back to Brisbane and she Skyped me so we could chat - Norma and Mike were rowing a marathon (quad) on the Tweed, but of course that was Saturday for me, still counter-intuitive.

We called in on George, Cissy and Monika on the way back and stayed for a wonderful al fresco supper, saw thebigpicture.tv new website, which is most wonderfully innovative, and showed them our latest achievements, then rolled home to our little cat, and the lights shining on the water.

From Norma

2009-06-26T22:32:00.000-07:00

http://flagspot.net/flags/xf-ics.html#combo

The possibilities!

Poulenc

2009-06-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

Swept along by irritation at my frowsty sitting area, I gave up trying to tidy it for something approaching a photoshoot and repainted it. First two colour choices were dire, but soft putty has transformed it. The blackout curtains on the side windows are retired for the moment too.

I also tore off the skirtings, the last dinky ones in the house, and am sorely tempted to rip up the carpet. Two-foot-square cement tiles underneath which could be coaxed into smartness, but horribly hard underfoot, and my precious antique Afghan rug would get pounded.

The feeling of that area is quite changed, into something approaching an orangery. Pale colour, white linen sofas, lots of glass and big mirror. Nice.

What I really meant to write was that last night I was seized with the desire to hear Poulenc's Domine Deus, and discovered a wonderful version by a school choir on youtube. When I think how hard a bunch of adults found it, and these kids manage so beautifully! Fieldston, in the Bronx.

Then Gounod's St Cecilia Mass for good measure, and I have been driving Stefan mad with soft dirge-like renditions all morning while I cut the last fourteen China Blue cushions and wondered which French composer was the one who interfered with the choirboys (Saint-Saens?). He has gone to buy chocolate biscuits for morning tea, but I suspect he just had to get out. Poulenc isn't something that the people can hum.

Late Evening

2009-06-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

Suddenly an astonishingly clean and tidy house - unless it is just by contrast to the guddle of the past week. Anyway, I am enjoying it - had to clear for the shoot today, and swept and swiped to good effect.

Low Tide

2009-06-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

We went out early onto the breakwater to see the lowest tide of the year and it might well be true that you could walk to the islands. San Francisco Bay will have its wetlands back soon enough, at this rate.

The blue crane was fishing alongside more common birds, not at all put off by my bellowing of "Ev'ry valley...". A seagull stole his fish; the crane pursued while I shouted at the gull, "Hey! don't you know he's endangered?" I like to think it was my intervention that shamed him into dropping the fish. Bad gull.

Aeropress

2009-06-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

Felix's Aeropress makes heavenly coffee!

Buckley escaped this morning and came to our gate, so I rang Tom then went walking with Buckley round the marina, amazed at the erosion and wetness from high tide last night, and of course, more to come. The whole thing is going to wash away, the sea wall is breached in three places.

A sociable weekend, the Crushpad party where I actually met people I knew, the to Mary's garden party where of course I also met people I knew, and some very nice ones I know now. I hadn't realised Mary's garden is one third of an acre and runs right down to the lagoon, and of course since she is the proprietor of Quite Contrary Gardening, amazingly laid out and planted.

This morning we will have breakfast for Father's Day with Cissy and George, and the boys are coming over at about four o'clock. All good. And a fig from our own tree, perfectly ripe and tasting of honey.

Not Coping

2009-06-19T19:12:00.000-07:00